


He Who Wins You Over

by chiiyo86



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Desert, Gen, Mystery, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:32:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2496263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiiyo86/pseuds/chiiyo86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That Dean got them lost isn’t the most worrying thing about their situation. No, the problem is that, one, this town isn’t on the map at all; and two, it looks like it might be impossible for them to leave. Season three era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Who Wins You Over

**Author's Note:**

> My entry for [spn_summergen](http://spn-summergen.livejournal.com/), in answer to a prompt by [steeplechasers](http://steeplechasers.livejournal.com/). Thanks to [sylvia_locus](http://sylvia_locus.livejournal.com) for the beta, and to the mods of summergen.

The low whirring sound of the car engine. Tires eating away the asphalt. The whizz of the car cutting through the wind. Warmth and peace, the smell of leather, of laundry detergent.

Sam slowly opened his eyes, trying to cling to the last shreds of his dream. He couldn’t remember what it’d been about except that it was cozy and relaxing, and that it was hard to come back to reality. The deep blue of the sky hurt his eyes and he shut them tight again with a groan.

“Where are we?” he asked his brother, his voice raspy.

“I left I-40 when we reached Gallup,” Dean said.

Sam opened a suspicious eye. There was no music on—points for consideration there, bro—but Dean’s fingers were drumming against the wheel to the beat of a tune only he could hear, the rhythm reverberating into his whole body: shoulders, neck, bobbing head and all. He was wearing the fake cheerful expression that hadn’t left him since he’d sold his soul at a crossroad.

“Why the hell did you leave I-40?” Sam pushed himself up on his seat, hissing at the burn of heated leather against the palms of his hands. “I thought we were going to California. Dean?”

“I’m taking the scenic route.”

“The scenic route. Right.” 

Sam looked out of the rolled down window on his side: empty miles of grayish earth all around, the monotony of it only broken by creosote bushes, sprinkled here and there like green fluffy dust bunnies abandoned under the bed. Far away in the distance, the mesas, so perfectly flat and dusted with lighter green, looked like a giant had decided to cut off the tops of mountains. Clouds rolled in the blue sky in a race with the Impala.

“And where’s the scenic route taking us?” Sam asked.

“Chaco Canyon, man! The Pueblo ruins! Don’t you want to get your geek on ancient historical stones?”

“I’ve already been there,” Sam said. “With friends from college.”

Used to be, mentioning college was one efficient way to shut Dean up. Not so much now. “Well, I haven’t,” Dean said, casually resting his arm against the windowsill on his side. Which was undoubtedly burning from the heat if the way Dean’s hand twitched was any indication, but Dean still didn’t move his arm, probably unwilling to ruin the whole nonchalant demeanor he had going.

“Okay,” Sam said. “You didn’t answer my question, though. Where are we?”

The corner of Dean’s mouth dipped down. “About that: I’m not entirely absolutely _sure_ —”

“Don’t tell me you’re lost,” Sam said, keeping his voice flat.

Dean coughed up a noise that was halfway between a chuckle and clearing his throat. “Lost is such an extreme word.”

“But you don’t know where we are.”

“I’ll find my way! I’ve been around these parts before.”

“Before? _When_? When we were kids and we spent half the time on the road sleeping or fighting with each other?”

“No, more recently, with Dad. Come on, you just gotta trust me on this.”

Sam sighed. “Yeah, get us lost in the desert. That’d be great.”

The baking heat outside and inside the car made him long for shade and refreshing drinks. He tried to doze off again, chin tucked against his chest and arms crossed so his skin didn’t touch anything heated, but he couldn’t recover the previous feeling of comfort and peace. His t-shirt clung to his skin, his palms sweated too much no matter how often he wiped them on his jeans, and he had to keep pushing sweat-matted strands of hair off his forehead while Dean helpfully pointed and laughed.

“I bet you wish you could shave off that mop of yours, don’t you, Sammy?”

“Fuck off. Aren’t you hot?”

Dean was wearing a shirt open on an undershirt, the rolled up sleeves his only concession to the temperature. He smirked smugly with his _I laugh in the face of heat_ expression. Sam wanted to dunk the asshole’s head into cold water.

“Right, right, I know. Mind over matter, is it?”

“One day, grasshopper,” Dean said. “One day.”

They stopped twenty minutes later to take a leak on the roadside. The wind had picked up again and they had to pee facing the road in order to avoid getting splashed. Fortunately, they hadn’t met any other vehicle in a while. It was so quiet out there that it was startling, and Sam found himself almost holding his breath rather than break the silence. The sky was clouding over and it was getting slightly, but measurably, cooler, the wind drying the sweat off Sam’s skin.

“How close do you think we are from the nearest town?” he asked.

Dean shrugged, in the process of zipping his jeans up. “Couple hours, give or take.”

Translation: he had no goddamn idea. When they climbed back in the car, Sam fumbled in the glove box through cassette tapes and empty wrappers, and pulled out a map of New Mexico. The map was worn white at the creases where it folded, coffee-stained, and Sam wasn’t even sure it was up to date.

“What road are we on?” he asked, eyes looking for Gallup as a reference point.

“We were on NM57 at one point.” Meaning that they didn’t know where they were now. Good fucking job, Dean.

Sam looked up from the map to the road, searching for a sign that would enlighten them as to their location. The road wasn’t in the best of states, cracked right in the middle like it was at any moment going to open in two and swallow them whole, and edged with burned grass that ate away the white strips painted on both sides.

“Here.” A flash of green and white at the corner of his vision field. “There was a sign. It said ‘Broadhouse, 10’.” Sam frowned at the map. “I can’t find Broadhouse anywhere on this.”

“Maybe the map’s too old?”

“Hmm. That sign didn’t look very recent, though.”

Although it could have just been desert dust making it look old. In any case, the fact that they had a destination within less than ten miles in reach allowed Sam to unbend a little. It was almost 8pm and twilight was meeting with them quickly, offering them a gorgeous colorful sky, golden orange on the horizon, where the sun was setting behind the mesas, velvet blue above their heads. It was now chill enough that Sam had to roll up his window, shivering in his still damp t-shirt.

“We’re getting there,” Dean said with a glance at him.

Sam knew this was the only kind of apology he could hope from his brother. He smiled at him. “Yeah. Well, I hope for you they’ll have vacant beds and gas for the Impala.”

_\- Fist Night -_

When they passed the entrance sign to Broadhouse it was already dark, and only the Impala’s lights sweeping over the sign allowed Sam to read it: “‘Broadhouse, population: 268.’”

“Now that’s what I call a city,” Dean said.

“Hey, shut it. If you’d stayed on I-40—”

“All in the past, Sammy. Aren’t you excited to discover what kind of marvels Broadhouse has to offer us?”

Sam rolled his eyes. All he wanted was to shoot this chipper version of Dean in the head and get his real brother back, and then go to bed, but there was only one of those things he could get in the immediate future. Dean seemed convinced that if he acted like everything was alright about his current situation, he’d manage to get Sam to think it too. In the meantime, Sam merely hoped that Broadhouse wasn’t on the shit end of backwater places.

“Hey, gas station,” Dean said suddenly. “Sweet, we can get my baby something to drink.”

“How lucky for the car.”

“Aren’t you in a pissy mood tonight?”

Sam thought it best to abstain from a reply. The gas station was bathed in a halo of electric light; there were only two pumps and it was pay-at-the-pump, no gas station store in sight. Sam unfolded out of the car as Dean proceeded to fill the Impala. He stretched and took a few steps, looking around at the silent town, the darker shapes of the houses huddled in shadows. It smelled like gas and warm desert, creosote and sage, carried to him by the wind. It wasn’t completely dark yet and the horizon was pale where the sun had disappeared.

“Looks like a fucking ghost town,” Dean commented from where he was holding the pump into the car. “It’s not even nine.”

“God, don’t jinx us.”

They got back into the Impala once Dean had finished slaking his car’s thirst, and drove down the main street at a slow pace, an eye out for signs of life. Sam’s attention was caught by the lit-up front of a low, painted white building with the word “bar” in red capital letters on its side. He pointed it to his brother, who decided it sounded promising and parked the Impala next to the building.

There were people inside, so it wasn’t an actual ghost town—good thing, because Sam didn’t feel like working tonight. It was a long, narrow room with a low ceiling adorned with old-fashioned green ceiling tiles. There was a bar on one side and a few tables on the other, with a booth on the far end corner. Patrons turned their heads at Sam and Dean’s entrance, first in an absent-minded way, and then, when they saw that the newcomers were strangers, with insistent, lingering stares.

“Hello there,” Dean said a little too loud, in that cheerful belligerent way that amused some people and antagonized others.

“Did you get lost?” the bartender said abruptly. She was in her mid-forties, her dark hair gathered into a long braid, and was wearing a denim shirt with the tails tied up on the front. Her face betrayed nothing: no welcome, but no suspicion either.

“We’re just passing through,” Dean said, eluding the word ‘lost.’ “Is there a motel where we can stay for one night?”

“We have a motel.” That coming from an old white guy in baseball cap, sitting at the bar. “People do tend to get lost around here.”

Someone in one of the darker corners of the bar snorted. “So easy to take the wrong turn.” Several other people laughed.

“The motel’s on Cedar Street,” the bartender said, with a scowl to whoever had talked. “Second street on the right, then you turn left, then left again. Can’t miss it.”

“Thank you very much,” Sam said with his sweetest smile, hoping to mellow her out. “Can we have some food?”

She waved for them to sit at the booth, and they had to walk across the room to get there, everyone’s eyes intent on them. “Nice people,” Dean murmured, sliding into the booth.

“Behave,” Sam said in the same tone. “We want to survive the night.”

The bartender brought them laminated menus that split at the corners. She lingered a moment too long at their table, like she wanted to tell them something, but when Sam looked at her expectantly she scurried back behind her bar. Sam and Dean exchanged a look, and Dean shrugged. They were used to small towns, to being strangers in small towns, but this one sure took the cake. Dean, though, chose to let it slide, like he did with everything these days. He looked around the bar with the air of an appreciative tourist.

“Hey, look.” He reached across the table to poke at Sam’s arm, and Sam followed his look: left of the bar, in a corner they hadn’t been able to see when they’d entered, was a pool table. No one was playing.

“Want to play a game after dinner?” Dean suggested.

Sam waited for the normal chatter from other patrons to resume. “I don’t know if I want to stay any longer than we have to in here.”

“Aw, come on. One little game. Are you afraid I’ll kick your ass?”

“I’m not twelve anymore.”

“Really? Because you’re acting twelve. Why do we care what those people think about us playing pool in their bar? It’s a free country.”

Sam saw the bartender move again in their direction, probably wanting to take their order. “We’ll see.”

In the end, he relented. It was rare for them to have a chance to play pool together without it being part of hustling, and the people in the bar seemed to have relaxed and were now happy to pretend Sam and Dean weren’t there. And Dean wanted it, and as complicated as Sam’s feelings were about his brother these days, he couldn’t really go against anything Dean wished for, not when… well. Sam firmly closed the door on that train of thought—nothing helpful would come from there.

When they finished their dinner, it was already twenty to ten and the bar had cleared from half its patrons. Besides Sam and Dean, the only people left were the bartender, the old man at the bar, and a black teenager who had fallen asleep at one of the tables, his head cushioned on his crossed arms.

Dean rose from his seat and went to the pool table with a proprietary air, looking as much as ease as he was anywhere else. Sam followed him with a glance to the bartender, but she was wiping glasses and didn’t seem to pay them any mind. They flipped a coin and Sam got to be the one to break. The cues looked like they’d been used a lot: the tips were well-worn, to the point that they were almost flat. Dean made a face when he took note of it but they started playing anyway. It’d been too long since Sam had not played for money, and soon enough he found himself loosening up, forgetting where they were and their current circumstances. Dean played in a relaxed manner, not attempting any complicated shots, eyes crinkled at the corners from enjoyment. Sam won the first game; they ordered two beers and Dean asked for a rematch. 

In the middle of their second game, as Dean was leaning over the table, the tip of his cue a hair’s breadth from the cue ball, there was a tingle from the door and a draft of cool air sneaked into the bar. Sam, who’d had his back to the door, felt the sudden urge to turn back and look at who was coming in. The bartender put down the glass she was holding a little too harshly onto the counter; the black kid started awake, looking wide-eyed at the newcomer. 

It was a white man somewhere in his early thirties, tall but not quite as tall as Sam. He wore a cowboy hat but took it off after he’d closed the door behind him, pressing it against his chest like he’d just entered a church.

“Good evening, Mari,” he told the bartender. He had a low, silky voice, the kind of voice that sounded like it belonged to a nighttime radio host.

“We’re closed,” said Mari in a brittle tone. The tendons in her necks were pulled taut.

The man chuckled like she’d just said some inconsequential joke. “Good evening, Marvin,” he said to the kid and, “Good evening, Earl,” to the old man.

He advanced into the room until he could see the pool table and Sam and Dean. Sam saw that his brother had frozen into his shooting position.

“Newcomers,” the strange man said with a slow warm smile. He had a chiseled, high-cheek-boned face, and teeth as white as a Hollywood actor. “Hello there.”

“’Lo,” Dean said, his tone barely civil, and Sam echoed him in a low murmur. 

The man didn’t seem to take offense. “Welcome to Broadhouse,” he said. “I’m Budd.”

“I’m Sam, this is my brother Dean.”

“I imagine you need some place to stay tonight.”

“Mari already told us about the motel,” Dean said, straightening up and resting his cue stick against the rail.

“Oh, no, don’t let me stop you from playing! Or—allow me to join you.”

“Budd,” Mari said. “Leave them alone.”

“Don’t be such a kill-joy, Maria,” Budd said, and the old man at the bar cackled at Maria’s sour expression. “Just a friendly game.”

The offer didn’t seem open to refusal. Sam and Dean shared a grim look: you couldn’t be a hunter for half of your life and not be able to read a situation. The tension in the room had ratcheted up to sky-high level. The kid on the other side of the room was fidgeting, like he wanted to make a run for the door but didn’t dare draw attention to himself.

“Fine. We need to start over, then,” Dean said, and started to gather the balls into the rack. “Are we playing for anything?”

Budd’s smile widened, like he’d hoped Dean would say that. “Is there any other kind of game? Let’s start with money.”

Dean paused in his task to shoot the man a look. “And then what? We’ll play our immortal souls?”

Sam’s heart skipped a beat at the quip but Budd laughed with genuine amusement.

“We just met, Dean,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “That would be greedy.”

On a tacit agreement, they let Budd break and watched him carefully, trying to determine what kind of player he was, whether he was the kind to calculate angles and whatnot, or the patient, observing kind, or a hustler—just like they were. Almost against his will, Sam felt himself slide into hustling mode, assessing the opponent, his weaknesses, trying to determine how they should play this up. Budd already knew they were brothers, and they couldn’t have hidden the fact that they’d arrived together, so they couldn’t work their usual con. It wouldn’t do, anyway— they weren’t going to rip off this man as a mark, not in such a tiny town; but Sam had a feeling they’d have to fight to protect their money.

Budd played without hurry, rarely losing his smile, but his strokes had the fluidity of long-time practice. He never took long before a shot, but rarely missed anything, to the point that Sam and Dean didn’t spend a lot of time playing, to their growing frustration.

“Get me a beer, Mari,” Budd said cheerfully after his eighth perfect shot in a row. “I feel lucky tonight.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at Sam and quirked his mouth. Luck, right. This wasn’t luck, this was skill, and Budd wasn’t bashful about it. Nor was he showing off, not exactly; he just seemed to be good-naturedly making his way to victory.

Maria, tight-lipped, brought him a beer bottle. When she passed next to Sam she cast him a look that he couldn’t decipher. Was she blaming him—them—for something? Was she worried? About them, _for_ them? He was interrupted in his musings by a whoop of joy coming from his brother.

“Sorry,” Dean said with a smirk at Budd. “I’m just happy I finally get to play.”

Budd dismissed the apology with a wave. “It’s the game.”

Dean grabbed his cue and carefully positioned himself at one side of the table for his shot. It was a difficult cut shot, but then Sam had seen Dean manage worse. Except that his brother had been on the road all day long, behind the wheel most of the time, and probably wasn’t at his best. Sam worriedly watched the way Dean stifled a yawn behind a close fist, the way he blinked before taking the shot. One of the balls was knocked off the table and Dean smacked the rail with his knuckles.

“Goddamn it!” 

Dean gave another string of curses, red in the face with anger and shame, but Sam’s attention was on Budd. The man was taking a long swig of his beer, Adam’s apple moving up and down as he swallowed, his eyes fixed on Dean, dark eyes that looked like two cool pools of still water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and told Sam, “Your turn, pal.”

Sam missed his shot too, and the game, not really in their favor so far, went even more downhill from there. They played until midnight, lost fifty dollars to Budd With No Last Name, and when Dean aggressively asked for a rematch, Sam touched his elbow and said in a low voice, “Not a good idea.”

“But—”

“ _Dean_.” Sam intently looked him in the eye, hoping to convey the message that something was very wrong here and they were in need of a strategic retreat. “Let’s find a room to crash. I’m exhausted.”

“You’ll find that the Desert Motel’s an ideal place to rest,” Budd said in the tone of friendly conversation. 

“Nice to hear,” said Sam, grabbing his brother’s elbow to keep him in check. “Well, thanks for the game.”

“Pleasure was mine.” It wasn’t said in a gloating way, and yet Sam had never wanted more to punch someone in the face.

The bar had emptied while they were playing, and only Maria remained, standing poised behind her bar.

“Welcome to Broadhouse,” she said as Dean pushed the door to outside. For some reason, the way she said it sent chills up Sam’s spine.

“Is it me or have we just been conned?” Dean said.

“Yes, we have. I just have no clue on the _how_.”

\---

At least Budd hadn’t lied about the Desert Motel being a pleasant place. The motel was a one-story building shaped as an L, with a red-tiled roof and low semicircular arches decorating the covered gallery that ran along the rooms. They got Room 1, as there were apparently no other guests at the moment, and Dean made the obligatory Norman Bates joke to that. The room had walls covered with wooden panels, an old-fashioned writing desk with thousands of drawers, and warm orange and sand-colored bedspreads. Both Sam and Dean slept like logs and woke up around ten to an already hot day.

“I look forward to getting out of this hellhole,” Dean groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. 

Sam looked at the sight from their window: a handful of long, one-story houses painted various pastel colors; a windmill cut out against the blue sky, with a water tower next to it, its blades spinning lazily in the direction the wind pushed them; and far in the background, mountains, striped red and beige, were rising like islands from the desert sea below.

“It doesn’t look so hellish outside,” Sam said.

“Want to stay here? Be my guest.”

They got dressed and went to the motel lobby. Last night when they’d checked in the clerk had been a middle-aged Hispanic man. Now it was a girl a few years younger than Sam, light brown hair curling on her shoulders, pale skin burned at the nose and cheeks. She had a badge pinned to her blouse that read, “Laure.”

“Good morning, Laure,” Dean said with a grin, perked up by the apparition of a pretty girl.

“You’re the newcomers,” she said, giving them an appraising look.

“News travel fast, I see.”

The girl snorted. “Small towns. What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

There was a flat cadence to her words that Sam recognized. “Are you French?” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said, looking surprised. “Not many people recognize my accent.”

“There was a French exchange student in one of my classes in high school.”

“How did you end up here?” Dean asked. “If you don’t mind my asking. This town looks a little…”

“Lost in the middle of nowhere?” Laure smiled. “You don’t say. Well, my story isn’t that interesting. Are you checking out?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and handed her the key to their room. “We’d like to have breakfast before we leave town. Any recommendations?”

“Well, you’ve already been to Maria’s bar. There’s Penny’s Diner down the road, the breakfast is good. Otherwise… I don’t think you’ll want to go to Budd’s bar.”

“Budd’s a bar owner?” Dean said. He and Sam looked at each other. “And he has the time to cruise around other people’s establishments?”

“Budd isn’t hard-pressed for profits.”

“What’s this guy’s story anyway?”

“His story? Budd doesn’t have a story. Budd is Budd, that’s all.” She looked at something over Sam’s shoulder, in the direction of the window overlooking the street. “Maybe you’ll want to skip breakfast.”

Sam turned around to see what she was looking at—he thought he’d heard a car drive by—but all he could see was a cloud of dust floating above the ground.

“Why are you saying that?” Dean asked.

“Listen,” Laure said in a lower voice, leaning toward them. She had thin, chafed lips that looked like she had a habit of biting them. “Get into your car and drive the hell out of here. Drive fast. Don’t look back. Drive until you get to the next town—”

“What _is_ the next town?” Sam asked.

“I... I don’t know. I’ve never been further than here.”

They couldn’t get anything more out of her after that. She shut down like a bank vault, turned back to polite motel clerk mode and bade them a good day. 

“What the hell was that?” Dean said as they walked to the spot where the Impala was parked.

“I don’t know. But I feel like following her advice. Don’t you? We could do some research about this town and come back later, but it feels like we’re sitting ducks right now.”

“I’m kind of hungry,” Dean said, looking mournfully in the direction Laure had pointed to Penny’s Diner. “But you’re right. Something’s wonky about this place. Let’s bail.”

But once they were inside the Impala and Dean turned the key into the ignition, the engine coughed with a weak kitten noise, and then nothing.

“What the fuck _now,_ ” Dean bit out, his brow deeply furrowed.

“Maybe it’s the carburetor,” Sam said.

Dean gave him a look. “You just used the first word that popped in your mind, didn’t you?”

He got out of the car without waiting for a reply, slamming the door behind him. Sam watched him fumble under the hood for a moment, and then went to join him.

“So?” he asked.

“So I don’t know what’s wrong yet,” Dean grumbled.

“Do you think someone tampered with it? To stop us from leaving town?”

“I don’t know. You know what?” Dean straightened up from the depths of the car’s insides. “You should go get us some breakfast. If we can’t leave right now at least we’ll have some food in the bargain.” He glanced around quickly, and lowered his voice: “And maybe you can get an inkling about what’s going on here.”

Sam nodded. “Got you.”

Hands in his pockets, Sam walked down Cedar Street, leaving his brother to curse and sputter at the car. He walked past a few houses, nodded at the people lounging on their porches. He waved, in friendly neighbor mode, but not many people waved back. Instead they looked at him, whispering to each other like he was the latest piece of juicy gossip. 

He knew he’d found Penny’s Diner when he saw the red neon sign flash at him. The inside of the diner was all shiny white and silver, like the inside of a spaceship. A plump older woman, maybe the eponymous Penny, smiled breezily at his entrance.

“Hello! Beautiful morning, is it?”

Maybe it was paranoia talking, but Sam thought that her bright smile looked even faker than the usual commercial expression of welcome.

“Yeah. It sure is sunny.”

“What will you have?”

“Uhh…” Sam’s eyes were drawn to the shiny colors of the menu above the woman’s head. “I’ll have two breakfast sandwiches.”

“Sure thing, hon.”

She disappeared into the kitchen, and while he waited for her to come back, fingers drumming against the counter, Sam looked outside to the street. Two men walked by the diner and stopped at the front window to look inside, to look at _Sam_ , and Sam had to turn his back on them, feeling awkward at being put on the spot. Small towns, he thought. Obviously, they all knew each other and Dean and he stuck out like sore thumbs. But… it wasn’t just that, was it? It felt like they all _knew_ about the new people and were watching them, expectant of… something.

“Here you go!”

Sam almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of the woman’s voice, and she chuckled at his reaction. “Nervous, are we?”

“No, I… I guess I was just lost in thought. How much do I owe you?”

“Twelve dollars, sweetie.”

Sam shot her a covert glance as he looked into his wallet for the right amount. He saw that now that she thought he wasn’t looking at her anymore, her smile had congealed on her face like cooling wax. Her terms of endearment sounded off to his ears, like she was playing a part she hadn’t had a lot of time to practice.

He gave her the money and offered her his own much more polished smile, turning up the boyish charm. “Do you know where Budd’s bar is?”

She blinked at him. Looked like he had strayed away from the script. “You know Budd?”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be surprised: he’d thought that the story of how he and his brother had lost to Budd had already gone around the town. It would’ve explained why all these people seemed to know about them.

“Uh, yes. My brother and I played pool with him last night. I heard he owned a bar in town.”

“You played… Oh.” The woman looked downright despondent about it. “Then you…”

“We what?”

She opened her mouth for what looked like an earnest answer, but then seemed to catch herself and her bright, fake smile reappeared. “You’ll find Budd’s bar at the corner of Oak Avenue and 8th Street. Just… follow the flow.”

“The flow?”

Her smile turned mysterious. “You’ll see what I mean soon enough. Have a good day!”

That was a dismissal if Sam had ever heard one. He managed a smile and left with the two breakfast sandwiches in a brown bag. The diner had been air-conditioned and the heat hit him in the face when he got out. He exhaled a sigh. _Follow the flow_. What the hell did she mean by that? He walked slowly, following Cedar Street to its end. She’d said he’d see what she meant, so he looked around him for anything that stood out. He was in a residential area again, houses with large gardens and burned lawns and clumps of desert plants: fuzzy cholla cactuses and blooming prickly pears, showcasing their palette of bright fuchsia pink, orange and yellow. One front yard had a pile of old tires and Sam could smell heated rubber from here.

The strangest thing was the people: not just the fact that they were all observing him—Sam was getting used to that—but there was also something aimless about them. The few walking the streets with him walked at a slow, measured pace, not with the sense of purpose that people with an actual destination had. But then Sam noticed that they were all going down the street, not up, so he… followed the flow. A car rolled by and Sam saw it turn left; he stopped and watched the two young women walking ahead of him, waiting to see whether they were going to make the turn or not. They did, and Sam followed them. The street they now found themselves on didn’t go straight but made a gentle curve—Sunset Loop, was the street’s name. Sam and everyone else went down the loop until Sam saw a building simply named ‘Budd’s Bar’, and he knew they’d reached their destination. The women he was following glanced at the bar and murmured to each other. One of them spat on the ground, next to the steps leading to the bar’s front door, and they went on their way.

On the other side of the street a group of people was gathered: some were smoking, some had dragged out a table and a few chairs and were playing cards. They weren’t all looking at Budd’s bar, but there was no doubt in Sam’s mind that the bar was the reason they were here. Sam’s eyes detailed the plain ochre walls of the façade, looking for anything strange. There was one window on the bar’s front, but it was obscured with curtains and it was hard to see if there was anyone inside. The only noteworthy thing was the presence of two drawings, painted in simple black lines, one on each side of the entrance: on the left was a coyote sitting on its behind, its tail erect, its head thrown back, and its mouth open in a howl; on the right was an owl with huge round eyes and wide open wings.

Eyes still on the bar, Sam inconspicuously got closer to the group. They probably knew who he was, or at least that he’d just come into town, and he was curious to see if they would try to speak to him.

He only had to wait a few minutes. “New guy, huh,” said one of the men playing cards.

Sam turned his head, eyebrows raised, as if surprised to be talked to. “Well, I… My brother and I got lost and spent the night at the Desert Motel.” And suddenly, Sam could put his finger on what had been bothering him all along: the _new guy_ , the _newcomers_ ; people weren’t treating them like strangers passing through, but like they were _moving in_.

“Have you been here long?” Sam asked the man, trying to keep the realization from his voice.

The guy scratched his arm with nicotine-stained fingers. “A few months.”

“What made you move here?”

The man exchanged looks with the other card players. One of them laughed nervously and said, “The weather?”

“Right,” said the first man. “The weather. Don’t you like the desert?”

“Not really a favorite of mine.” The man was still scratching his arm, a self-conscious gesture, and Sam noticed the golden band on his left hand’s ring finger. “Does your wife like it here?”

It was like a cold wind had blown over the group. Faces clouded over and pitying looks were directed the married man’s way. For a moment, Sam thought the blunder was that the man was a widow, and started to apologize.

“She’s in New Orleans,” the man said abruptly. “She can’t come here.”

Feeling he was touching onto something interesting, Sam had more questions—why? were they divorced? had they split?—but the man didn’t seem open for more discussion. The rest of the gathering had decided to ignore Sam now, going back to playing cards or watching Budd’s bar, but in a very forced way, with no casual conversation going on. Oddly, it felt to Sam like they were more embarrassed than outright hostile.

He left them and went back to Dean at the Desert Motel. He found his brother still working under the Impala’s hood, stripped down to a t-shirt, his face running with sweat, his hands grease-stained. At Sam’s approach Dean closed the hood and made his spine crack, two hands pressed on the small of his back.

“I hope you had better luck than me,” he grumbled, then sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his wrist.

“Uh, Dean, you’re bleeding.”

Dean looked at the blood on his wrist, then tentatively touched the underside of his nose. “Shit,” he said, pinching his nose and throwing his head back. “Fucking dry wind.” He sounded like a duck.

“I got us breakfast,” Sam said as a consolation. He looked inside the bag: the bread had gotten soggy and the eggs had congealed. “I also had a walk around the town.”

Dean moved an eyebrow to signal he was listening. “There’s definitely something weird going on here,” Sam continued. “I found Budd's bar, and everyone in town seems to gravitate around it. And the people here—they don’t act natural: it’s not just that they notice we’re strangers, it’s that they _know_ about us, and… They’re waiting for something to happen.”

Dean let go of his nose and poked at it. “Well, that’s not ominous at all.”

“How’s the car?”

“The car won’t start, and I don’t know _why_. Something’s definitely up with that. I swear, if that asshole messed with my car, I will rip him apart.”

“So what are we doing now?”

“Now,” Dean took the bag from Sam’s hands and got one of the sandwiches out, “we do what tourists do. We pay a visit to the town’s main attraction.”

They found out that Budd’s bar only opened in the evenings. With the Impala still not working, they could only go back to the motel and asked again for a room. When they entered the lobby, Laure looked at them and didn’t even pretend to be surprised that they were back.

“Same room okay?” she said, already getting the key to Room 1.

“You knew we’d be back,” Sam said, not making it a question. “What’s going on here? Why did you tell us to leave as fast as we could?”

She looked away. “Just one more night?”

Dean leaned forward, one hand on the counter. “Help us. You know what’s happening here, don’t you? You tried to warn us. Now if you could just—”

Laure turned to him with blazing eyes. “I can’t help you, okay? _Putain_.” She murmured something else in French under her breath. “It’s too late, now.”

“Why is it too late?” Sam asked. “What is it too late _for_? Laure, please—”

“Stop bothering me, or I’ll call my boss!”

They let it go—if they were stuck in Broadhouse, now was not the moment to start a fight with the locals—and proceeded to move their stuff back into the room they’d left a few hours before. Sam didn’t waste time before turning on his laptop and trying for a WiFi connection. 

“Nothing,” he said after a moment. “I can’t get on the Internet.”

“Well, we’re kind of the middle of nowhere.” Dean had reclaimed the bed he’d used last night and was lying down on it, arms crossed behind his head. “Try to call Bobby?”

Sam tried. “No signal.” He threw his phone on the free bed, hissing in frustration. “Is he doing this? Blocking the signal?”

Dean turned on his side, propping his head with one hand. “This is becoming a conspiracy theory. Is this guy God or something? Well, if he’s doing it, the question is: is he using natural or _supernatural_ means?”

They let it hang there, but none of what had happened seemed exactly natural. Sam focused on the lone cloud he could see floating in the sky. “No one’s going to talk to us,” he thought out loud. “But I don’t think they mean us harm either. So… whatever we do, I don’t think the locals—or at least the majority of them—are going to try to stop us. What we need, is to figure out what the hell this Budd guy is.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon debating theories, skimming through their dad's journal, making lists of possible bad guys, writing down the clues they had. When the sun started to go down behind the mountains on the horizon line, they left the motel armed to the teeth, prepared for any kind of threat.

_\- Second Night -_

Light and music were coming from Budd’s bar, door open to the evening’s cooling air. The group of people who had gathered across the street when Sam had swung by earlier were gone at present, but when Sam and Dean entered the bar there were not as many people inside as Sam could have expected. The atmosphere was tense too, the few people drinking at the bar or at the booths talking in hushed tones, as if afraid of being heard badmouthing the owner.

“Well, if it isn’t my new friends!” Budd himself was behind the bar, cowboy hat fixed on his head, and he welcomed Sam and Dean with literal open arms, beaming at them like they were old friends or long lost relatives. “Have you come to take your revenge?”

Sam was acutely aware that everyone in the room was watching them. Budd’s bar was bigger than Maria’s was, but had the same kind of old-fashioned, Route 66 Americana vibe to it. There were several pool tables at the back of the room but no one was playing; maybe it was just too early for that. The walls were covered with neatly framed pictures, and when Sam took a closer look at them he saw that they were all pictures of Budd with various people: in all of them Budd had passed a friendly arm around the person’s shoulders, but while Budd invariably shot the camera the same radiant smile, his companions’ expressions ranged from mulish to sour to outright frightened.

Dean’s eyes had followed the same path. “You have many friends,” he drawled.

“Everyone in Broadhouse is my friend,” Budd said, somewhat grandiloquently. Someone on Sam’s right choked on their drink. “Fancy a game of pool tonight? Or would you rather play something else? I play a mean game of poker.”

It didn’t seem to occur to Budd that maybe they hadn’t come here to play any game or get back at him and there was, Sam sensed, some sort of inevitability about what was going to happen. Going against Budd would be like going against the tide, pointless and even dangerous.

“My brother and me aren’t so bad ourselves,” Dean said with wary defiance.

Budd’s smile turned shark-like. “I look forward to witnessing that. Well, if you’ll follow me.” Budd left his spot behind the bar to push open a door, and signaled them to enter. “We’ll be more comfortable in a private room.”

Sam spared a thought to wonder who was going to take care of the bar, but a man rose from the table he’d been sitting at and seamlessly took Budd’s place.

The private room was small, most of the space occupied by the round table at its center, and the walls were bare. There were no windows, and it was stifling inside. All the lighting came from the single naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling with its wires apparent. The three of them sat at the table so to form an equidistant triangle and Budd materialized a deck of cards, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Five-card stud,” he said. “You mind if I deal?”

He didn’t wait for their input before he started shuffling the deck, then dealing the cards, one face up, one face down for each player. Sam’s face-up card was the lowest in the bunch and he was the first one to place a bet. He parted himself from a crumpled ten-dollar bill with almost physical pain: they were getting very low on funds, and even considering their ongoing credit card fraud it was soon going to be a problem. They shouldn’t be playing for money, but this time Budd hadn’t even pretended to give them a choice.

The rounds of betting succeeded to each other, each bringing a new card to the players’ hands. Sam’s own hand was pretty disastrous, and he couldn’t see any winning hand forming out of it, even if his last dealt card was a face card or an ace. He kept his expression smooth and bored, though, and was careful to keep his hands still, one of his most obvious tells. He looked at the other players and tried to gauge their chances. From what Sam could see of it, Dean’s hand was shaping up nicely: all hearts, one King, so maybe a Flush or even a Royal Flush. Dean had the usual cocky expression he wore during poker games, but the total relaxation in his posture—the way he leaned against the back of his chair, the line of his shoulders—told Sam that the confidence he flaunted was probably genuine.

Budd, on the other hand, was a complete mystery. It wasn’t just that Sam didn’t know him as well as he knew his brother. He flattered himself on being good at reading people, after a lifetime of honing this skill, but Budd’s content, self-satisfied expression never varied and every single one of his movements were perfectly controlled. Sam couldn’t read anything in his body language or his eyes: he was a wall, a smooth, glossy surface that gave away nothing.

“Last round,” Budd announced, and dealt three face-down cards, before placing another bill in the center of the table.

Sam fetched his last bill from a crease deep inside his jeans pocket, and cringe inwardly. He could only hope that Dean would win the game. Just as he had that thought he saw Dean, burrowing his hand into his own pocket, still in his movement and wince. From the bulge in his pocket, his hand had closed on something, but he didn’t take it out.

“I don’t think I have anything left to bet,” he said with a grimace. “Sammy?”

“Sorry, man, I’m all dried up too.”

“Just bet whatever you have in your pocket,” Budd said.

“I told you, I don’t have any more money.”

“What’s in your pocket, Dean?”

“It’s just…” Dean took out his hand and dropped the key to the Impala on the edge of the table. “Just my car key.”

Muffled conversation reached them from outside of the room. Sam felt a drop of sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades.

Budd said, “Fine by me.”

“What do you mean by ‘fine’? What about my bet? Hey!”

Budd ignored Dean and said, “Let’s show our hands,” before turning his face-down cards: a five, a six, a seven, an eight, and a nine of spades were nicely lined up. _Straight flush, goddamn it._

Dean was livid, looking at the cards spread in front of him like they had personally betrayed him: and indeed, his sequence of hearts had been ruined by a two of spades.

“Now _that_ ’s what I call a night well spent,” Budd said with obscene satisfaction. “Sorry, Dean. Maybe tomorrow night you’ll get luckier. Key to your car?”

Sam thought his brother was going to have a stroke: his face turned crimson and bulging veins pulsated on his forehead. “My—No! You’re not getting my car!”

“It was on the table, Dean. Come on, no one likes a sore player.”

Dean hammered his fist on the table, making the cards jump, and Sam thought for a moment that he was going to attack Budd. He kicked back his chair, ready to stop his brother before it went too far, but Dean only leaned forward, propped on his fists, and said, “ _Christo_.”

Budd smiled, the brown of his eyes unchanged. “I’m not a demon,” he said. “The holy water in your jacket won’t be of any use to you. You also can let go of the gun at your back, Sam.”

Sam only realized then that his hand had flown to his back and his fingers had closed over the grip of his gun. He let go of it when Budd told him to, barely aware that he was moving.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night, gentlemen,” Budd said, touching the rim of his hat in a two-finger salute. “I suggest you go get some sleep now.”

And the damnedest thing was, they didn’t think to protest before they were already back at the motel. 

\---

Sam woke up sucking in a breath, his heart jackhammering inside his chest. Eyes still shut tight he gave himself the time to breathe deeply and calm down, listening for whatever had broken his sleep, but the only thing he could hear was Dean’s low, rhythmic breathing. He opened his eyes and slipped out of bed, feet soundlessly meeting the floor, and padded to the window. He spread apart two of the blinds’ slats with his fingers to glance outside and caught two shadows scuttling away: wings fluttering upward, and the shadow of a dog-like creature that scampered behind bushes.

Sam waited for a few long seconds, holding his breath and straining to hear something, but the silence was so absolute it was deafening.

Then, from deep in the dark of the night: _yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yeow!_ The shrill, quivering cry drew out in rippling echoes for what felt like several minutes, and the silence after it ended felt all the more crushing by contrast.

\---

“A coyote?” Dean took a sip from the coffee Sam had brought him. “Is it unusual around here?”

“I asked at Penny’s and the owner says it’s not rare to see one of them foray into town. It’s just…” Sam fingered the lid on his coffee cup. “I have a feeling about it. It felt like we were being spied on.”

“By a _coyote?_ ”

“And some kind of bird. Big bird.”

“Ooo-kay. That sounds a little bit crazy. What am I saying? This whole _town_ is crazy, so why not, after all? All the more incentive to get the hell out of here.”

“Any progress with the car?”

Dean heaved a sigh that sounded like it was dredged up from deep inside him. “No change,” he said, his voice strained with real distress, looking down on his dirty hands and scraped fingernails. “I think we might have to—” He swallowed, looking pained. “We might have to leave the Impala here and try our luck on foot. Temporarily, of course!” His eyes flew over to the approximate direction the Impala was parked, like he was afraid the car might take offense. “We’ll come back for her, even if I have to strangle Budd with my own two hands to get her back. But we need to regroup, gather intel about this place and about whatever Budd is.”

They both lapsed into silence, the memory of last night’s humiliation all too vivid in their minds. There was no doubt left that Budd was something otherworldly, if not a demon then something else—Sam was leaning toward some kind of demi-god, remembering the Trickster from Ohio. Dean was right, they did need to get out of this town. There was just a tiny little problem with this plan.

“Thing is, we’re in the middle of the desert,” Sam said. “People die out there when they don’t know where they’re going, and we don’t even know where we _are_.”

“We load up with water and we follow the road. We’ll get _somewhere_ , we have to, somewhere other than here, and wherever it’ll be can only be a good place in my book. At the very least we need to get where we can have phone reception, and then we can call Bobby and get some backup.”

This was starting to sound more and more appealing, even though Sam knew that it was a very poorly thought out plan, likely to end with both of them dying of thirst and their bones being bleached by the desert wind. But the need to _leave_ , to just go and not turn back, forget this place even existed, was so strong that Sam could almost taste it. It pulsated in his veins with each of his heartbeats.

“The question is, do we go the same way we came from, or do we follow the road through the town and up to wherever?” It hadn’t taken Sam long to figure the general geography of the town: it was tacked on the road—probably a state road—they took to get here, an excrescence made out of a few interconnected streets. Obviously, the road had to lead somewhere eventually, they just didn’t know how long it would take them to get there.

Dean went to get their map of New Mexico out of the car, and they unfolded it on the writing desk, bent their heads together over it and tried to make sense of where they were.

“What’s the last town you remember before Broadhouse?” Sam asked his brother.

“Hmm, I think…” Dean squinted at the map. “Crownpoint. Here.”

“And you were aiming for Chaco Canyon. Right.” Sam tapped a fingernail under the green smudge marking the National Park. “You said at one point you were on 57. Why did you ever leave that road? It would’ve led us right into Chaco National Park.”

“I don’t know, okay!” Dean tugged at his short hair in frustration. “I remember… miles and miles of dull road. Did I make a turn at some point? Did I _miss_ a turn? I just don’t know, it’s all a blur. I just—”

“Okay, fine,” Sam said, seeing his brother was getting worked up. It was no use fighting over it, now. “We know we’re somewhere in that area.”

He made a circle on the map with a pen, and they looked intently at the spot, like they could conjure up their location by sheer strength of will. But the name ‘Broadhouse’ was still missing from the map; in fact, there was no town in the delimited area at all, only a web of backwater roads and a few blue spots symbolizing stretches of water. Other than that, only miles and miles of deserted land.

“If we backtrack,” Sam said, tapping thoughtfully the tip of his finger against the map, “at least we’re sure to find Crownpoint at some point, whereas if we go forward there doesn’t seem to be anything until the National Park.”

“We’ll find a Visitor Center or something there, I imagine.”

“Yeah, but we don’t know how far we are from it. It took us at least a couple of hours to go from Crownpoint to Broadhouse, so it’d be…” He made a quick calculation. “A day’s walk, minimum.”

“Sounds doable, if we do it by night. Then we don’t have to worry about getting fried.”

“Good point.”

The rest of the day was spent getting supplies from the general store on Main Street. The locals, disturbingly, had started treating them like they were new fixtures in town, greeting them with warm friendly smiles and calling them _Sam_ and _Dean_ and _how are you today?_ Sam and Dean responded in kind, not wanting to tip anyone off on their escape plan. At one point during the afternoon, Budd came to the motel and asked them to empty the Impala of their stuff so he could take her away.

“That’s a lot of weapons,” he commented sunnily as Sam and Dean opened the false bottom in their trunk and started to unload it.

“Do you _want_ me to shoot you in the face?” Dean growled. “Anyway, I haven’t been able to start the car, so good luck with that.”

“Really? That’s a shame. Maybe you just don’t have the right touch with that beauty.”

Sam had to wrap his arms around his brother’s torso to stop him from jumping Budd. It was hard to resist the temptation to punch the smug expression off the man’s face himself, though, and maybe he would’ve thrown caution out of the window and done it anyway if he hadn’t noticed clusters of people appearing at the end of the parking lot. He still wasn’t sure what people’s feelings were about Budd’s doings, but Sam didn’t want to test the handle Budd appeared to have on them. Against a crowd, Dean and he had no chance.

“Calm the fuck down,” he murmured to his brother’s ear, feeling him tremble with rage. “There’s nothing we can do now.”

Sam felt Dean’s chest expand with the breath he took in, then deflate as he exhaled noisily. “You better treat her good, Budd,” Dean said, in a tight controlled voice that cracked just a little bit at the edges.

“Don’t you worry about that,” said Budd, shutting down the now empty trunk. He ran a hand over the shiny black roof up to the driver’s door, then got behind the wheel. A few seconds later, the engine purred and the Impala slithered away down Cedar Street.

“Son of a bitch,” said Dean, sounding more dumbfounded than pissed off, now. “I hate that guy.”

_\- Third night -_

At 7pm, just like the night before, they went to Budd’s bar for another game. They’d agreed that in the eventuality that Budd might try to look for them if they left town, it was better if he was alerted about their disappearance as late as possible. Sam also thought that Dean held onto the hope that he would have a chance to get the Impala back.

Budd led them to the same room where they’d played poker, but this time it wasn’t a deck of card that he conjured out of thin air.

“How do you feel about dice games?” he asked, tipping the cup he held in his hand so that five red dice rolled out of it and on the table. “Have you ever played ‘Tripps’?”

Sam shook his head and Dean said, “Once or twice.”

“I’ll explain for your brother’s sake: five dice, the purpose is to have the lowest possible score at the end of the round. All numbers on the dice count as their face values except threes, which count for zero points each.”

“So I imagine that if you roll five threes, you win the game?”

“Exactly.” Budd grinned at him like… Sam would’ve said like a fond father, but his own father had never come even close to that expression. “You can also win by ‘shooting the moon,’ meaning that you roll five sixes. Then you win all standing bets and the round immediately ends. Are you clear on the rules?”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound too complicated,” Sam said. It also relied heavily on chance, and Sam doubted very much it would go in their favor when Budd was involved.

“Before we start playing, we all must post an ante.”

“Dude,” Dean said, “you already completely ripped us off. What do we have left to bet?”

“Oh, there’s always something.” Budd’s voice didn’t depart from his usual warmth, but Sam thought he could detect something cold underneath. “But I should go easy on you guys. This is supposed to be fun, right?” Dean hissed, ‘ _Fun, my ass_ ’ between his teeth; either Budd didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him. “Sam, you can bet a button from your shirt. And Dean, how about a lace from your boots?”

“Are we in kindergarten?” Dean grumbled, but still bent to unlace one of his boots.

“As for me…” Budd trailed off, like he wanted to let anticipation build up. “I’ll post this.” And he put the key to the Impala in the center of the table.

Dean’s eyes widened and his fingers curled into fists. Sam, on the other hand, felt his skin crawl with unease: Budd putting the car back into play could only be some bait-and-switch move on his part; he had to be sure he would win, to do that. 

The game started and that notion didn’t get disproved: although he didn’t make one of the winning rolls, he always had the lowest score and won the collective pots—though Sam wasn’t sure what he got out of bits and pieces of their clothing. They had to bet more shirt buttons and laces, their belts, the silver ring on Dean’s finger, Sam’s watch. Eventually, Budd started to look appreciatively at the amulet around Dean’s neck.

“No.” Dean’s fingers closed protectively around the golden pendant. “You’re not getting that. You want my pants? Fine by me! I’ll strip naked before I give you this.”

“Aren’t you protective of that piece of junk?” This was the first harsh word Sam had heard Budd say, and even then he spoke as evenly as ever. It was startling, like being pricked by a hidden thorn in a beautiful bunch of flowers. “Well, I would feel bad about forcing your hand, Dean. I think it’s time to up the ante.”

Dean eyed him wearily. “What do you mean?”

Budd interlaced his fingers on the table and his smile grew larger, his teeth gleaming under the electric light. “What about _yourselves_?”

“ _What?_ ”

“Maybe not both of you, I don’t want to get too greedy. I’ll let you choose: which one of you will be on the table?”

“Are you _crazy?_ No, don’t answer that. Listen, pal, my car was one thing but if you think for one moment—”

“I’m on the table,” Sam said, effectively cutting off his brother in his rant.

“Sam?” Dean grabbed Sam’s wrist and leaned into him, whispering forcefully, “What the hell are you doing?”

Dean’s panic and incomprehension were palpable, but Sam himself felt very calm and lucid. As soon as Budd had talked about them putting themselves on the table he’d flashed to their first night in Broadhouse, to Dean’s quip about selling his soul and Budd’s reply to that. He knew that Budd was serious about this, and thought he was finally starting to understand what was going on in Broadhouse. He also knew he couldn’t let Dean sell himself _again._

“I’m on the table,” he repeated. “Let’s keep playing.”

“ _Sam._ ” Dean’s grip became painful and Sam had to shake him off.

“Wonderful,” Budd said; to look at him, one would think that what had just taken place were perfectly normal game dealings. He took the cup and dropped the dice inside one by one, looking at Dean with an unvarying smile. He shook the cup, probably a little longer than warranted, and the dice jumping up and down inside sounded like thunder.

Budd then rolled the dice on the table and, unsurprisingly, they all showed sixes when they settled.

“No,” Dean said, and before Sam had the time to do anything he’d hopped onto the table and grabbed Budd’s collar, one fist up in the air. “No, you _bastard_.”

“Dean, don’t—”

Sam didn’t know what happened then, but when it looked like Dean’s fist was going to connect with Budd’s face, Dean suddenly found himself on the floor, cradling his head and grunting in pain, while Budd stood up and smoothed over the wrinkles on his shirt.

“Don’t worry, your brother’s fine,” he told Sam, who’d jumped from his chair to run to Dean’s side. Dean was blinking dazedly but he didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere, so Sam took him by the arm and hoisted him up.

“So I belong to you, now,” he said to Budd. He was careful to put himself between the man and Dean. “What does that entail?”

“Not much,” Budd said with an irritating smirk. “You should take your brother back to your room and get him some rest.”

“Yeah,” Sam murmured. “Come on, Dean.”

\---

Once they were back to their motel room, Dean didn’t seem any worse for the wear and they decided not to change their plans of nightly escape. They waited until 2am; they didn’t check out, of course, and folded themselves in two when they passed the lit-up windows of the lobby. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Sam would have felt a little bit silly to be sneaking out like a teenager.

They went back the way they’d arrived two days ago, walking in long strides through the dark streets. There were very few streetlights, only a few pockets of stale yellow light strewn along their way, and no other lightened window than the ones from the motel lobby. Dean was walking ahead of Sam, as fast as possible without actually breaking into a run, and even though Sam was the one with the longer legs, he had trouble keeping up.

“Dean, wait up!” he hissed. Dean’s pace slowed down minutely and Sam caught up with him so that they were shoulder to shoulder. “What’s the hurry, man?”

“We need to get out of here.”

“I know, that’s the plan but… Relax, okay?”

“How?” Dean stopped so abruptly that Sam staggered into a stop. “Sam, this… man, this thing, _owns_ you. This is fucked up. We can’t stay here one more minute.”

There was true anguish in Dean’s voice, and probably guilt too from not having been able to protect Sam from this turn of events, and Sam thought, his stomach clenching with the reminder, of what Dean had done the last time something serious had happened to Sam. So yeah, Sam agreed, they couldn’t stay here—he didn’t want to wait and see what sort of insanity Dean would come up with this time.

“I’m gonna be okay,” Sam said, cupping his brother’s shoulder then giving it a pat. “Let’s try not to draw attention on ourselves, okay?”

They resumed their walk in silence. With the lack of conversation and the need to stay aware of his surroundings, Sam gradually became aware that the nightly silence was actually rustling with small noises. There was the wind, rising up and piercing through Sam’s shirt and making him shiver: the swish of the wind in the bushes; the wind whishing in Sam’s ears. A faint chirping in the background. Now and then, scurrying sounds at ground-level. They passed the gas station where they’d stopped the first night, then the entrance sign, and the wind started to get blustery and blow sand across the road.

They both got their jackets out of their duffle bags and they shuffled closer for protection against the wind.

“What do we do if it gets worse?” Sam asked, raising his voice to be heard.

A hand above his eyes to shield them, Dean marched forward, leaning in to push against the wind. “We keep going!” he yelled.

Thunder roared above their heads. The sky had changed colors, and a bolt of lightning formed a web of cracks over the charcoal-gray lid of clouds. Wind-borne sand whipped Sam in the face, burning his eyes, and he couldn’t see very well but it looked like there were two dark figures barring the road at a distance: one was a short, crouching form leveled with Sam’s waist, and the other a dark blur floating over the first. Sam stopped, cupped a hand over his brow and squinted his eyes to better see.

“Dean!” he shouted.

His brother grounded to a halt, realized that Sam wasn’t following him and twirled around. “Come on, Sam!”

“Dean, look!’

Dean looked, and when his whole body went taut Sam knew that he was seeing it too: a few yards ahead of them on the road was a coyote, with a tawny-colored fur and a black-tipped tail, and a triangular face where gleamed two amber eyes; landing next to it was a large owl, with a big head and a white heart-shaped face, and black, unnerving button-like eyes. They stayed still, not moving to attack—the coyote even yawned widely at one point, revealing its sharp teeth—but Sam was suddenly reminded of the coyote and the owl painted on Budd’s bar, and of the noises that had woken him up the night before.

“We’re going back!”

“What? No!” Dean got his gun from inside his jacket and pointed it at the coyote.

“Dean, no!”

Sam took a step toward his brother, but the owl had already opened its wings wide and taken off. It swiftly swooped upon Dean and Sam heard him scream and saw him fold his arms over his head to protect himself.

“Dean!” In two strides Sam was at Dean’s side and pulled his brother to him, a hand on his back to keep him hunched over. The owl’s large wings fluttered rapidly in Sam’s face and a few feathers flitted about.

“We’re going back, okay!” Sam raised a hand in front of his face and one of the bird’s claws caught to the fabric of his jacket. “We’re _going_ , so leave him alone!” It was a bit of bet to assume that the bird could understand him, but at his words the owl stopped attacking and flew over in a twirl.

“Are you okay?” Sam spun his brother around, both of them breathing loud; in the dark, he could only see that there was blood on Dean’s face.

“I’m fine. Fucking bird.” 

As Sam and Dean backtracked toward the town, the wind calmed down a little. When they passed the entrance sign, Sam read, “Broadhouse, population: 269.” He swallowed; he was pretty sure the number had finished with an ‘8’ before, but he didn’t point it out to Dean.

He held his brother’s arm all the way back to the motel. Dean was locked into silence, upset or hurting, Sam couldn’t tell. The light was still on in the motel lobby; they made a stop there. Laure was behind the counter, a magazine in her hands, but when she looked up at their entrance Sam had the very strong feeling she’d been waiting for them.

“I could have told you it wouldn’t work,” she said.

“You lost too,” Sam said. “Didn’t you? Everyone in this town gambled against Budd and lost.”

“And now we all belong to him. Believe me, you’re not the first to try running away.”

“Then what can we do?” Dean groaned. Sam looked sharply at him: now that he had some light he could see the red scratches on his brother’s forehead and around his eyes, but fortunately the eyes themselves looked intact. “What can we do?” Dean repeated, tearing himself away from Sam’s grasp. “We lie down and wait for the end? Huh? Is that it?”

“Nothing,” Laure said with flat, weary resignation. “We do nothing.”

\---

When Sam woke up the next morning he found Dean sitting on the other bed, angrily scrubbing a disassembled gun. The red claw marks around his eyes looked even worse in the daylight and made him look like he’d lost an argument with a wildcat. Next to him on the bed was lined up an arsenal of shotguns, handguns, flare guns, knives (one of which was obviously silver), at least three different kinds of rounds, and a wooden stake sharpened to a point. 

Sam scrunched up his nose against the pungent smell of cleaning detergent. “Are you going to war?”

“What do you think?” Dean glanced inside the barrel he was holding. “If we can’t get away, then we fight back. Since we don’t know exactly what he is, I’m getting ready for everything.”

Sam sighed, sitting up in his bed. “And how do you plan to hide all this on yourself?”

Dean gave a frowning, sweeping glance at his weapons. “I’ll find a way.”

“Well, have fun with it. I’m going out to get us some breakfast.”

But once he was dressed and out, free from the warlike atmosphere of the motel room, he found himself wandering around. People nodded or waved at him casually, greeting him like he was one of them and—hell, he _was_. He tried to wrap his mind around the idea, and weirdly enough, some part of him started to think that it might not be so bad: it was a quiet place, the people seemed nice enough once he’d lost the label of ‘stranger’, and it didn’t look like Budd was torturing them or anything. There were certainly worse fates for a hunter.

_Yeah, dumbass. Like Hell, for starters._

And just like that, any shred of optimistic resignation vanished from Sam’s mind. He couldn’t be stuck in Broadhouse, because who would save Dean from Hell then? Sam combed through his hair with his fingers, and had a look around him: his steps had taken him once more past the gas station at the entrance of town. Sam could see the back of the entrance sign, and the road leading out of town that shimmered from the heat. After a moment of hesitation—he didn’t want to risk another attack from the owl or the coyote—he headed toward it.

_Broadhouse, population: 269._

He hoped he was misremembering it, but he couldn’t shake the very clear memory of that same sign under the light of the Impala, saying _268_. It implied Budd had a great deal of power to be able to control every aspect of the town like that; unless the town itself was under some sort of curse.

Hands in his pockets, Sam turned back into the town, unwilling to risk that standing at the border of the town be considered as another escape attempt. He walked until he reached Maria’s bar. He thought at first that the bar was closed, but then saw movement behind the curtain at the window. The front door opened and a man walked out. 

“’Morning,” the man said.

“Uh, yeah. Good morning.”

Sam stopped the door from closing with his foot and entered the bar. Sitting at the counter was the same old man with the baseball cap as had been there the night they’d gotten into town, and no one else, save for Maria herself.

“Hey,” Sam said, perching himself on one of the hardwood stools. “Do you serve breakfast?”

Maria gave him a long look, like she was trying to decide if ‘breakfast’ was a code word for something. “No. You need to go…”

“To Penny’s diner, yeah. I know the place. I was just passing by and… Never mind.”

“Do you want to drink something?”

“No, I should go back to my brother.” Dean was so wrung up right now, he was liable to do anything if Sam was gone for too long.

Sam slid off his stool, made as if he was leaving, then changed his mind and turned around. “Maria, tell me—what _is_ he?”

There shouldn’t be any need to specify which _he_ Sam was talking about, but for a moment Sam thought she was going to make him say it. Her dark, bushy brows knitted together to form one twisted line.

“I don’t know,” she finally said.

“He’s the Devil!” the old man at the bar exclaimed; Sam had almost forgotten he was there.

“What?”

“Shut up, Earl,” Maria snapped.

“What else can he be? You never win when you gamble against the Devil; every deal with him is rigged. How can you deny that it’s what happened to every single one of us?”

 _A deal with the Devil_. Sam’s breath got caught in his throat. Deals, he knew about deals, of course, and Earl was right, what you get is never worth the price you pay. Who did he know who made a deal with the Devil in recent days?

“Thanks,” Sam blurted out. “Good day to you. I—”

“Don’t listen to Earl’s drunken ramblings,” Maria said. “Budd isn’t the Devil. He’s… he’s…” But she couldn’t come up with anything and her usual severe expression softened into helplessness.

“It’s okay,” Sam said. “Maria, it’s going to be fine.”

He left the bar buzzing with excitement, his heart fluttering in his chest like a nervous hummingbird, his hands shaking with it. He had an idea, but it was kind of insane, which meant that he couldn’t tell Dean about it even if Dean had no room to complain whatsoever on the subject. But Sam needed the Colt, so he had to get back to their room, and since he’d promised to bring them breakfast he swung by the general store to buy them bread and cheese.

He found Dean still obsessively cleaning their weapons.

“You hungry?” Sam asked. “I got caught up talking with people so I just have bread and cheese…”

“It’s fine, I’m starving,” Dean said, making a grabby motion for the food.

While Dean wolfed down his share of bread and cheese like he’d never wanted to eat anything else, Sam gave the room a sweeping glance, looking for the Colt. He found it on the bed, between a shotgun and a silver knife, its long, thin barrel making it stand out.

“Did you learn anything new?”

“What?” Sam tore his eyes away from the Colt. “Uh, not really. I don’t think the people know more than we do about Budd. They just know that he owns them, and that they can’t leave.”

“Well, someone has to do something about it. If we share the load, I think we might be able to carry most of the weapons on ourselves.”

“But, remember that second night? Budd seemed to know we were armed. We won’t be able to surprise him.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t try to hurt him with them. He could’ve been bluffin—acting like he was invulnerable and shit. He’s a gambler, after all.”

“It didn’t go so well when you tried to punch him last night,” Sam pointed out.

Dean took a blade from the bed and twirled it between his fingers. “I don’t plan to hit him with my fist this time.”

Sam shook his head and let it go. If his plan worked out the way he wanted to, anyway, it wouldn’t matter whether Budd was permeable to bullets or not.

_\- Fourth Night-_

Sam was feeling the weight of the weapons Dean had made him carry as they made their way to Budd’s bar: gun at his back, blades at his ankle and wrist, holy water weighing down his jacket pocket. Dean was similarly armed with added wrist dart launcher, a device that he’d manufactured himself. At the bar, they found a lot more people than the nights before, so many that the building couldn’t contain them and some had spilled over to the front steps and the sidewalk. Obviously they knew that tonight’s game was crucial, and the anticipation ran like a shiver among the crowd.

“Good luck!” Sam heard someone say. As if luck had a single thing to do with it.

Dean looked like the picture of calm and collectedness, far from the ball of nerves he’d been all day. He smiled at a pretty redhead who was leaning against the doorframe, and she smiled in response as she moved to let them through.

“You’ll see,” she said. “Things aren’t so bad around here.”

“Well, if you’re part of those things then I’m inclined to believe you,” Dean replied smoothly, in the low flirtatious purr he used on good-looking women. Only the way he held his arms slightly apart from his body, ready to grab a weapon at any given moment, betrayed his state of mind, at least to Sam’s practiced eyes.

Inside the bar, all the tables were occupied and the counter was lined up with drinkers. They turned at Sam and Dean’s entrance as one, and Budd clapped his hands like the night’s main attraction had finally showed up.

“Sam and Dean!” Budd exclaimed and, absurdly, some people in the crowd started to applaud; they were elbowed to silence by their neighbors. “You’re right on time.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dean said, with a cynical little quirk of the mouth.

He took the lead and weaved his way among people, heading toward Budd. Sam saw his fingers flex by his side and he hurriedly caught his brother’s arm to murmur frantically to his ear, “Don’t do anything. Please, stay put.”

Dean twisted to look at him, his eyes flicking left and right, up and down, searching Sam for a clue. “What….?”

“Trust me. I got it. _Trust me_.”

Dean detached Sam’s fingers from his arm. “Okay.”

He went to the bar and slapped his open hand on the counter. “Barkeep!” he shouted. “A whisky.”

Budd chuckled and served Dean a glass. He gave it a little shove so it slid up to Dean, who caught it and drank it all in one shot. “Anything for you, Sam?” Budd asked.

“No, thanks.” Everyone’s surface calm was starting to make him singularly nervous. All of a sudden he doubted his plan, his brain coming up with a thousand ways it could go wrong. Of _course_ it was going to go wrong, what the hell had he been thinking? What—

“Ready?” said Budd, breaking the train of Sam’s fevered thoughts. He quickly realized Budd was addressing Dean, though. It made sense: Sam had already lost all he had to give. “I thought we’d keep things simple tonight, Dean, if you don’t mind. I imagine you know rock-paper-scissors.”

Dean flinched a little, and Sam did too. It didn’t seem to matter when they played Budd whether they were good at the game or not, but Dean was just stupid at rock-paper-scissors.

“What are we playing for?” Dean asked, even though to all people present it was a matter of course.

Budd smiled indulgently. “For you, Dean. What else?”

“But what about you?” Sam asked, drawing all the eyes in the room to himself. “What are _you_ playing?”

“You, I guess. What do you say, Dean? Do you want to play to get your brother back?”

Dean opened his mouth to answer but Sam overrode him. “No, that won’t do. You’re asking to put all of himself on the table, but what am I to you? You own everybody in this town. The risks aren’t even.”

“So what do you suggest?” Budd’s expression had shifted from his usual good-naturedness to something Sam had trouble deciphering. “I’m sure you have something in mind.”

Sam’s heart pounded against his ribs. “I’m suggesting you make the risks even: my brother against _you_.”

A murmur went through the crowd and Sam’s eyes locked with Budd’s. He hadn’t wanted to sound too eager to make Budd risk himself, in case it clued him in about the fact that Sam had a plan to win, but looking into the man’s—or whatever he was—eyes, he saw that it didn’t matter if Budd saw right through him. He understood then, with a flash of insight that floored him, that gambling wasn’t a means to an end to Budd. Maybe Budd didn’t even mean to win all the time, although he sure seemed to enjoy it. Gambling was what Budd _was_ , and gambling was about taking risks and then coming out on top. He was utterly unable to resist Sam’s suggestion.

“Alright,” Budd said softly after a long moment of silence. “Everyone bears witness: I’m playing myself against Dean Winchester.”

Sam registered a faint surprise at the fact that Budd knew their name, but it got smothered under everything else: anticipation, fear, and a fair amount of excitement. He saw Dean give him a look, _are you sure?_ and smiled reassuringly at him.

“Shall we start, then?” Budd said.

Dean rolled his sleeve up his right arm. “I guess we shall.”

“We’ll play in three rounds.”

Dean said it was fine by him, and Budd counted to three. First round: Dean put out the scissors, and Budd the stone. Even if it didn’t really matter what Dean did, Sam couldn’t help but think: _Stop it with the scissors, Dean!_

Second round: Dean played the scissors again, and winced at the sight of his hand, like it hadn’t been a conscious decision, but Budd played paper. An excited _aaaah!_ rippled through the crowd. Budd didn’t look in the least bit worried.

“Last round,” he called with a cocky smile.

“Just get on with it,” Dean grumbled.

“One,” counted Budd, “two—”

Sam searched the crowd with his eyes, going through every single face, recognizing Maria, Laure, the woman from Penny’s diner, the old man with a baseball cap, the married man whose wife was in New Orleans, and the black kid from the first night, when they’d played pool. The expressions ranged from excited, to focused, to resigned, but they were all there, all waiting for the outcome, and there was a little hope mixed up with even the most jaded look. But Sam couldn’t see what he was hoping for and his heart now threatened to jump through his throat. It hadn’t worked. He’d made a mistake and now Dean was going to pay for it. He was getting ready to grab one his weapons and fight for it, when Dean’s whole body shivered violently.

“Dean?”

Dean’s head was bowed low and he had a hand over his eyes.

“Are you okay to keep playing?” Budd asked warily. “Dean?”

“I’m fine,” Dean said, his voice low and a little muffled from his position. “Counting up to three: one—”

“Two,” Budd said at the same time Dean said it.

“Three!” they chorused.

A deep silence followed, the crowd holding their collective breath, and then a rumble started from the back of the room and outside in the street, where the people who couldn’t see Dean and Budd were asking in frantic whispers about the outcome.

“This can’t be,” Budd whispered. His eyes were fixed on his closed fist, and Dean’s flat extended hand.

“Paper beats the stone,” Dean said, but his voice had a strange, oily quality to it. He raised his head and Sam saw Budd’s movement of recoil before he saw the ruby-like glint in his brother’s eyes.

_Oh God._

“Are you satisfied, boss?” said red-eyed Dean.

“I didn’t know you’d—You didn’t have to _possess him!_ ” Sam choked out.

“Wasn’t mentioned anywhere in our deal, and you can’t argue with the results.”

“Yes, but—”

“What’s this trickery!” roared Budd, seeming to recover from his shock.

“Hey, buddy,” the crossroads demon said with Dean’s voice. “We won fair and square, so now you need to be good to your word. Okay, maybe it wasn’t _exactly_ fair… But then you’re not always fair yourself, are you? That’s the way of the game, pal: you win some, and you lose some.”

“I—” Budd turned to Sam. “You tricked me.”

“You tried to gamble for something you couldn’t claim: my brother’s soul is already accounted for.” The words tasted very bitter in Sam’s mouth.

“So now, I’m yours,” Budd said, and opened his arms. “What are you going to do?”

Sam hadn’t really thought that far. What could he do, kill Budd? He’d killed his fair share of supernatural beings before, but there was something despicable in the concept of owning a life and using that power to end it.

“Free everyone,” he said, “and go away. Never gamble for another life again.”

The crossroads demon said, “You heard the man?” He snapped his fingers under Budd’s nose and, without a sound, without even a quiver in the air, Budd disappeared.

The crowd burst into a chaos of exclamations and screams and high-pitched conversations with a lot of arms waving around. Sam took advantage of the confusion to sidle up to his possessed brother. He grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him outside. “Now, release my brother.”

“You wish is my command,” the demon said sardonically. “You know you’ve only gained a few months by doing this, right? Your brother’s a goner anyway.”

“Shut up and let him go!”

Dean’s head snapped backward and a billow of dark smoke rushed out of his mouth. Sam heard someone gasp, but fortunately no one came to them to demand an explanation.

“Dean?” Sam called in a gentle voice, cautiously touching his brother’s elbow. “You in there?”

“Sammy?” Dean slowly blinked. “What…” He seemed to wake up with a jolt. “What was that thing? What did you _do_? The—It—it talked about a deal. Tell me you didn’t—”

“No, I didn’t sell my soul, Dean.” Now wasn’t the moment to comment on the hypocrisy of Dean’s reaction. “I just had a little chat with the crossroads demon, and since it had a vested interest in you not being claimed by another entity, it wasn’t hard to convince it to help you. I had to do a little Colt waving to convince it to get more involved than that, though.” From inside the bar he heard laughter and whoops of joy. “And now, I think it’s the right moment to get the hell out of dodge.”

“Hey, wait!” It was Laure, running up to them. “Hey.” Out of breath, she folded in two with her hands on her knees. “What happened?”

“What happened is that Budd’s gone,” Sam said. “You’re free.”

Laure’s mouth opened and closed, like she was so overwhelmed she couldn’t find her words in English. “ _Alors je peux_ … It means we can leave? I can go back home?”

“Yes, you can.”

“Thank you,” she said fervently. “Thank _God_.”

“God didn’t have a whole lot to do with it,” mumbled Dean, and Sam nudged him in the ribs.

Laure thanked them again, and again, until it became embarrassing and they had to excuse themselves more or less gracefully. They went back to the motel; there, they found the Impala and Dean addressed payers of thanks to the heavens. 

“I thought God didn’t have anything to do with it,” Sam said, earning himself a glare.

“You shouldn’t have done this,” Dean said. “Summoning a crossroads demon to do your bidding? That’s—”

“You don’t get to lecture me on this,” Sam said, startling even himself with how cold he sounded.

Dean ducked his head. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “Fair enough.”

They left Broadhouse just as the sun dropped down behind the far away mountains, driving into the shadowed emptiness of the desert, followed by the eerie sound of a coyote’s wailing.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was: “Sam and Dean, waylaid for a week in a strange and tiny town in the middle of the desert. Bonus points for Southwestern Native American mythology,” so I took my inspiration from a Southwestern Native American myth about a divine gambler named Noqoìlpi by the Navajos and Hasoqata by the Hopi – you can find accounts of this legend [here](http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/nav/gambler.htm) and [here](http://www.stopthecasino101.com/id82.html).


End file.
